Why is this here..

A Lead Odyssey is about my hobby, collecting, painting and playing with toy soldiers. It will cover the various rulesets I use, the figures I am painting (very slowly), and some games. Thanks to Harry Pearson for the Achtung Schweinehundreference. The uniform jacket in the picture was adapted from a safari suit, the weapon is a wooden sub-machine gun made by me and my dad. Cool eh?

I play a range of scales, rules and periods.. scales are anything from 6mm, through 15mm to 28mm for little men, but I also use 1/1200 for Napoleonic Naval, and 1/3000 for Pre-Dreadnought period Naval.

My tastes are eclectic, but I have avoided most 'Fantasy' Games for a few years, as I couldn't get into the usual suspects for Fantasy Battles, and didn't have a decent group to play role-playing style games.

Monday, 26 November 2012

Some more test paints, and I am starting to get a lot happier. The dynastic colour was yellow, and I am trying a very restricted palette for the dynastic troops. So here they are.

Sui Spearman, who will eventually be part of the Bow stands (DBx elements).

I am going to drill out the hands on a few of these guys so I can do banners for most of the stands.

Crossbow specialist, or Pu-Ping Bowman, who will be mixed with the Spearman above

Archer Specialist, (skirmisher)

Allied Light Horse

Cataphracts with some additional detail

Heavy Armoured Cavalry

Seven elements done, so maybe 10% of the army, plus the test foot elements. I also have some other Crossbowmen, plus the local light horse archers, artillery and ships. Other cataphract regiments are supposed to have been 'black' and 'white' so I will try two elements of each colour for a total of six cataphract stands (including a general), in red, black and white.

Sunday, 25 November 2012

Just back from Landwaster.. a lot of fun and I think 16 or 18 players, using DBA 2.2, (even if those Sydney-siders
did come and steal the silverware). The Inca chalked up wins vs French
Ordonnance, Free Companies, Warring Kingdoms (Wei) Chinese, and Later
Imperial Roman.

And then to Thematic Byzantine (felt I should have won this one.. 1 was 1
element plus camp up (Psiloi end run) 3-0 and then rolled disastrously
in a series of combats to go down 6-3 (admittedly I was at a
disadvantage in most.)

Psiloi End Run vs Thematic Byzantine.. shortly after this I looted the camp and then proceeded to roll 1s to lose my general then several others.. At least I earned my opponent the 'Executioner award.

OTOH - can't complain as the previous game saw mano-a-mano General
combat at 4s, and I rolled the 6, and he rolled the one.. first combat
of the game. Sorry Gregorius.

Deploying vs the Free Companies.

Murray (Later Imperial Roman) traditionally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, being unable to flee a Psiloi (off table) with a Blade element, allowing me the time to have a fantastic combat round and finish up at 6-3 in my favour. Sorry Murray.

I think the Incas can now be retired, as I won a lovely Peter Pig Samurai
army as the Magister Militum (highest placed by handicap). So maybe
they will be the next lot to get painted.. after the Sui. Some sort of
Eastern theme emerging here..

Friday, 23 November 2012

So with a competition looming on Sunday, I managed to discipline myself enough to be finished with a couple of days to spare.

These are a mix of Falcon, Minifigs and I think a Naismith Litter. I haven't done my best work, and I keep looking at them and thinking I need to add a wash to feathers, or more decoration, but they are perfectly acceptable for tabletop use.

The competition is for DBA, but these will also see duty in our upcoming 'Ozpocalypto' competition intended to mark the end of the Mayan calendar, and for which we are going to use DBMM 100. So rather more figures were needed than the standard DBA sized army.

Thursday, 15 November 2012

Have been working on a couple of elements for the planned Sui army for Cancon. All Essex figures, I have reached a point where I am not sure what else I should do to them. I am tempted to try some characters on breastplates in yellow, and some trim, as Yellow is supposed to be the dynastic colour. But here they are anyway.

Thursday, 8 November 2012

So I had got distracted from the Inca, painting up a couple of test bases for Sui Chinese, planning a Battle of Britain game using 1/350 aircraft, some more SAGA stuff, you know how it is.. anyway.. look around and you suddenly realise time is getting away from you.

So the last day or so, I made a concerted push to get the Inca to the 'Satisfying' stage. (For me, the 'Satisfying' stage is where each colour you add makes the figure look better and better, instead of just being another block of colour on an unfinished masterpiece. Sort of the bit when you start to see the shape the building is going to be...)

And time is running out. Ozpocalypto to celebrate the end of the Mayan Calendar is sometime mid December, and I foolishly promised I would run Inca at the Landwaster DBA tournament on the 25th of November. What with party season, and having to go out of town next week, I am getting very short of time to polish these off - and of course when these are done, I hit panic mode to get all the Sui completed to play DBMM2 for 'The Worlds: Cancon' at the end of January 2013.

So while they are still a long way from finished, I am starting to really enjoy painting these guys. The bases are now complete except for dry grass flock as per the litter, (flocking comes last), and some of the simpler figures are now getting close to completion with things like some additional tunic patterns, headband and ink for the hair to go.

So here they are so far..

The big Cahuna, with some of his elite regiments, in front the wildmen...

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